Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

This paper will look at the benefits and drawbacks to legalizing marijuana by looking in at Colorado.The state made forty million dollars by taxed marijuana in 2014 alone, also Colorado saved countless millions because of the extremely lower amounts of marijuana arrest and court cases. It is not clear how having new recreational marijuana stores opening will affect the cannabis market, or businesses expanding around them. Gov. John Hickenlooper says that the economy is thriving with record setting numbers of tourists (73.1 million). 49 percent of those tourist said that legal marijuana influenced their decisions to vacation in Colorado. The ER’s in Colorado have also seen a rise in numbers of marijuana related cases and those cases in non-residents have almost doubled. An unexpected situation that arose from legal cannabis was the amount of electricity that is being use to grow the drug. Some cannabusinesses have to go green with solar or wind power. There are many varying views on the effects of legal marijuana have developed in Colorado since marijuana became legal in 2014.

The topic of legalizing recreational marijuana in the United States has been a very controversial one. States such as Colorado and Washington have gone on the offensive and have legalized recreational marijuana and have enjoyed the high revenues brought in from cannabis sale. On the other hand other states have kept low profiles because they are wary of the possible negative outcomes of legalizing recreational marijuana and are using the states of Colorado and Washington as guinea pigs to see what their next course of action on this controversial topic should be. This is not only a highly debated topic among politicians, but also by the people. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center 52% of Americans

The evidence provided for both claims have somewhat of a correlation, so there is mixed information regarding marijuana as it is associated with crime. The researcher's hypothesis of this article states that criminal behavior is due to the illegality of marijuana. However, if marijuana was legalized for medicinal purposes, those problems would no longer exist ( ). This hypothesis ties into whether or not there is a link to crime and marijuana because it seeks to examine the effects of medical marijuana laws.The variables in the study were consistent with the question at hand. According to the findings in the research, the dependent variables were the Part I offenses, homicide, rape, assault, burglary, robbery, auto theft, and larceny accounted for in each state from 1990 to 2006.The Medical Marijuana Law was the independent variable. This included information about when the law was passed in the respective state. Several sociodemographic control variables were set in order to account for other influencing factors. The results based on this research conclude that the states that passed the Medical Marijuana Legislation laws experienced reduced crime rates. This suggest that MML may contribute to a reduction of crime. Therefore, the hypothesis was supported. These

Five states have implemented way to minimize the amount of crime while people are still able to use. Even though the states have made this determination though a vote. The Federal government still sees it as a felony crime. Within the reform strict policies have been set in place. Should marijuana be decriminalized or legalized? Should there be restrictions based on age. There was an analysis done that compared five states that implemented major marijuana reforms. Evaluating their effectiveness in reducing marijuana arrests and their impact on various health and safety outcomes. The two types of reforms that were evaluated: all-ages decriminalization in the states of California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The other reform was 21-and – older legalization in Colorado and Washington. From the analysis out of the five states all five state experienced substantial declines in marijuana possession arrests. There were four states with available data that also showed unexpected drops in marijuana felony arrests. All- ages decriminalization more effectively reduced marijuana arrest and associated harms for people of all ages, particularly young people. The decriminalization in California has not resulted in harmful consequences for teenagers, such as increased crime, drug overdose, driving under the influence, or school drop outs. California teenagers showed improvement in all

There has been major news forming around the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Medical marijuana has been effective in Colorado since 2000. Now marijuana is legal for recreational use for people 21 and up. Many rules and regulations follow the legalization of marijuana. Many people of Colorado fear this legalization, where others are totally for it and think it will help boost Colorado’s economy. I have found many

These negative effects of marijuana being illegal at the recreational level can be fixed. There are solutions and benefits to these problems. The first and most important thing the state will have to do in order to legalize recreational cannabis is decriminalize the drug. If marijuana was decriminalized in the state of Minnesota, crime rates and arrest would decrease. According to Christopher Ingraham, a writer for the Washington Post said, “In Colorado, marijuana arrests fell by nearly half from 2012 to 2014. Marijuana possession charges in Washington state fell by a more dramatic 98 percent between 2012 and 2013. Alaska, Oregon, and D.C. show similar declines.” Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and D.C. saw major benefits when they decided to make marijuana legal for recreational use. If Minnesota decriminalized marijuana, not as many people would be in jail, which would help with the over crowdedness in prisons in the state. Colorado alone has compiled several research studies demonstrating that legalization has not promoted an increase in violent crimes. According to research conducted by the Drug Policy Alliance “During the first year of the implementation of Amendment 64, Denver experienced a 2.2 percent decrease in violent crime rates and an 8.9 percent reduction in property crime offenses” (Heuberger). Decriminalizing cannabis will help our police department focus on more violent and heavy drug-related crimes. This evidence provides proof that legalizing recreational

In November 2000, voters in Colorado passed Amendment 20, which enabled patients and their caregivers to obtain a restricted amount of marijuana from medical dispensaries (Sensible Colorado, n.d). The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment faced legal charges for creating an informal rule prohibiting caregivers from providing medical marijuana to more than 5 patients at a time (Sensible Colorado, n,d). In 2007, Sensible Colorado, Colorado’s medical marijuana distribution system, won the lengthy hearing, and its victory made way for store-front dispensaries throughout Colorado. Fast forward November 2012, 55% of Colorado’s voters were pro-Amendment 64 (Sensible Colorado, n.d). Amendment 64 made recreational marijuana use legal to anyone age 21 or older. This law was effective January 2014, and almost two years later the changes in the state are astounding.

The topic of legalizing recreational marijuana in the United States has been a very controversial one. States such as Colorado and Washington have gone on the offensive and have legalized recreational marijuana and have enjoyed the high revenues brought in from cannabis sale. On the other hand other states have kept low profiles because they are wary of the possible negative outcomes of legalizing recreational marijuana and are using the states of Colorado and Washington as guinea pigs to see what their next course of action on this controversial topic should be. This is not only a highly debated topic among politicians, but also by the people. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 52% of Americans support the

It is inevitable because Americans are very passionate about not having the government telling them what they can and cannot do. In the case of marijuana, since it’s negative effects are small, those who stand against decriminalization are only standing for a losing fight. Medicinal purposes for marijuana have been proven and 23 states have legalized cannabis medicinally and most of this legalization has occurred in the last 15 years. Cannabis is used medicinally to give those undergoing chemotherapy an appetite as well as limit nausea and vomiting brought on by chemotherapy. Other uses include pain relief, a decrease in pressure in the eyes of those diagnosed with glaucoma, and relief of epilepsy for some.Instead of suing Colorado, these states could be among the first few states to legalize and reap benefits as well as encourage other states to legalize

One of the reasons that marijuana should be legalized is the fact that marijuana reduces crime. Some critics might argue that marijuana causes many crimes, and therefore, marijuana should not be legalized. However, the State of Colorado, which allows the use of marijuana, experienced a huge decrease in the number of crime incidences involving marijuana after passing the marijuana bill, to seventy seven percent between 2012 and 2013. There were seven hundreds and fourteen cases of tiny amounts of marijuana possession for each month before the legalization, but seven hundreds and fourteen

For the past fifty years, the public has been fed incorrect information about marijuana’s risks by law enforcement and anti-drug groups. Time has changed, because Colorado and Washington State became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, this has arose the possibility of a rippling effect across the nation. Now, many states such as Oregon and Alaska are voting on this issue. Although medical researchers have claimed that marijuana may help patients and the drug is not as dangerous as informers noted before, legalizing the drug will create a downfall to society by expanding its accessibility to our future generation. Not only will expose our youth to more harmful drugs, but it will also endanger the safety of our community.

In typical legislation fashion, this big-ticket bill will tear some deep spliffs, I mean riffs, amongst politicians. While several states are jumping on board the marijuana train, the topic is still amongst controversy. Just like 12 Angry Men, it's going to take some keen persuasion to get everyone around on the same verdict. Colorado has reported millions in profits and seeks to use that money for infrastructure, schools and ironically enough, anti-drug

Additionally, legalization will decrease the burden on an already over taxed criminal justice system and will alleviate related property and violent crime in society. This difference of legality between the states of the union and the federal government has created an untenable situation that cannot last. Conversely, the common arguments against legalization, tend to focus on the increased availability to youth or a common belief, that allowing marijuana use to be legal will cause a drastic increase in crime rates. These fears are simply unfounded; voters and legislators alike need to look at the issue of marijuana from a more pragmatic standpoint. Realizing that cannabis is no more dangerous to use than alcohol and that marijuana offers an incredible opportunity for generating revenue, to this point only employed by deviant elements of society. Much like the prohibition era of the 1930s, we learned that outlawing alcoholic beverages did not make the populace safer; conversely, it put them in more danger since the product’s quality was always questionable and enforcement was costly and dangerous. Now people are more likely to use alcohol responsibly due in part to the education of the dangers rather than just being

The legalization of drugs has always been a big debate in the United States. For hundreds of years, our citizens have argued over what they think would be best for our nation. From The War on Drugs to the legalization of Marijuana in Colorado, the United States has transformed. Many believe that this was the worst decision Congress could ever make and others think that this changes life for the better. Although this had always been a great debate, there is nothing much that people could argue over now that Marijuana is legalized in more than one state.

It has. In 2012, Colorado became the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use for people 21 years of age and over. Since then, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, and just recently in February, Washington D.C. have followed the visionary state of Colorado and legalized the recreational use of marijuana (Ferner, 2015). The results are astonishing. As Morton (2014) states that in Colorado alone, the legalization of marijuana will generate $1.9 billion in the first five years due to purchase tax of the substance, and it will end between 9,000 to 10,000 arrests in the state for simple marijuana possession a year. But wait, theres more. According to the Colorado Center of Law and Fiscal Policy, the state could potentially save up to $40 million from no longer prosecuting minor marijuana possession cases, and the legalization of marijuana has facilitated the employment of 10,000 people in the state as well (Rucke, 2014). Even with all of the apparent benefits of the legalization of marijuana, there will still be critics. One prevalent argument critics fabricate is: “legalization will only conjure crime and marijuana can now be sold to underage citizens.” False. Rucker (2014) proves this argument as being a fallacy by utilizing the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data, that concludes that the